Girl critically wounded in Oregon college massacre is released from hospital

(Reuters) - A 16-year-old girl who was shot and critically wounded when a gunman opened fire at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon, earlier this month was released from a local hospital on Tuesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, who was struck in the back by gunfire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon on Oct. 1, was among the most seriously wounded survivors of the shooting rampage in which nine people were killed before the gunman took his own life.

Sarah Baumgartner, a spokeswoman for Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg, who announced shortly after 8 a.m. that Fitzgerald had been discharged from the hospital, did not release any further information about her condition.

Baumgartner said Fitzgerald was the last victim of the shooting to be discharged from Mercy Medical Center. One patient remains hospitalized in serious condition at another area hospital.

Fitzgerald had graduated from high school early and was in her first week of classes at Umpqua Community College when, according to witness accounts, 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer stalked into an introductory writing class there and shot his professor, then began gunning down his classmates.

Harper-Mercer then exchanged gunfire with police before retreating to another classroom to take his own life.

The shooting marked the latest such rampage at an American school and prompted President Barack Obama to speak out in favor of stricter gun control measures.

Harper-Mercer, who moved from the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, California, to Oregon with his mother in 2013, carried six guns and extra ammunition with him to campus the day of the killings, according to law enforcement officials. Another eight firearms were found at the apartment near campus where he lived with his mother, officials have said.

Authorities have disclosed few details about the gunman’s motives, due in part to their desire to deny him further notoriety.

Harper-Mercer, who graduated from a California high school for trouble teens, left behind a two-page diatribe that included racist ramblings and voiced his regrets about not having a girlfriend, according to reports in U.S. media.